CEST Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what the time is in central Europe right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in Germany or France, a flight connecting through Amsterdam, a match starting on European time, or someone to reach before their evening winds down. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current time in the Central European zone and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Wherever in the world you are reading this from, the clock tracks Central European time and keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change. Whether the zone is on CEST or CET at the time, the clock shows the correct local time.

CEST is the summer half of Central European Time

Here is the thing worth getting straight up front. CEST is not a year-round zone. It is the summer half of Central European Time. The central European countries run on CEST, Central European Summer Time, through the warmer months, and on CET, Central European Time, through the colder ones.

So there are two settings behind the word central, and CEST is one of them:

• CEST, Central European Summer Time. Two hours ahead of UTC, written UTC plus 2. The summer setting, and the one this page is named for.
• CET, Central European Time. One hour ahead of UTC, written UTC plus 1, one hour behind CEST. The winter setting.

What that means in practice is that for the winter months, roughly late October to late March, the zone is not on CEST at all. It is on CET. The clock above still shows the right local time through those months, it is simply CET that it is showing then.

What CEST actually is

CEST stands for Central European Summer Time. It is the daylight saving version of Central European Time, two hours ahead of UTC. When the zone springs forward in spring, CET at UTC plus 1 becomes CEST at UTC plus 2, and the evenings pick up an extra hour of daylight. Come autumn it falls back to CET.

It is the single most widely used summer time in Europe by population. The band of countries on it stretches from Spain in the west across to Poland in the east, and from Germany and the Netherlands in the north down to Italy. To the west, the UK and Portugal sit one hour behind on their own summer time, and to the east, countries like Greece and Finland sit one hour ahead on Eastern European Summer Time.

When central Europe is on CEST and when it is on CET

Whether the zone is on CEST or CET comes down to the date, and across the European Union those dates are fixed by law, Directive 2000/84/EC on summer-time arrangements. Every member state changes on the same two Sundays, at the same instant:

• Spring forward. On the last Sunday of March, the clocks jump ahead one hour. CET becomes CEST, and the zone goes from UTC plus 1 to UTC plus 2. This is when CEST begins.
• Fall back. On the last Sunday of October, the clocks drop back one hour. CEST ends and CET returns, at UTC plus 1.

So the rule is short. CEST is in effect from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. Outside that window, from late October round to late March, the zone is on CET instead. Find where today sits between those two Sundays and you will know which one is running.

Converting CEST to other time zones

CEST sits two hours ahead of UTC, so converting from it works from there. Through the summer the gaps to other places that also run daylight saving stay steady, because everyone has shifted together. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon CEST in the summer.

A few quick examples

Let us run a few, so you can see how this works.

Say it is 12 noon in Berlin during the summer, when the zone is on CEST. London is one hour behind, so it is 11 in the morning there. UTC sits two hours behind, at 10 in the morning. India is three and a half hours ahead, so 3:30 in the afternoon in Mumbai.

Now a call to New York. New York is normally six hours behind central Europe, so 12 noon in Berlin is 6 in the morning there, early but reachable. That six hour gap holds for most of the year, but there is a catch. The US and Europe do not change their clocks on the same dates, so for two or three weeks in spring and about a week in autumn the gap briefly drops to five hours.

One more, on the offset. At 12 noon on CEST it is 10 in the morning UTC, because CEST is two hours ahead. That same noon in the winter, when the zone is back on CET, would be 11 in the morning UTC, since CET is one hour ahead. The clock reading is the same, the offset to UTC moves by an hour, and daylight saving is the only reason.

Where Central European Summer Time is used

CEST is used across most of central and western Europe through the months daylight saving is active. The bigger cities on it include Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Amsterdam, along with Brussels, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, and Zurich. Switzerland follows the same schedule even though it is not in the EU.

Across the European Union the change dates are set centrally, so every one of these countries springs forward and falls back together on the same two Sundays. The pattern stops at the edges, though. A few European countries, such as Iceland, Belarus, Russia, and Turkey, do not change their clocks at all and stay on a fixed offset year-round.

Cities on Central European Time

If you want the live clock for one particular city rather than the zone as a whole, here are a few to jump to:

• Berlin time now
• Paris time now
• Madrid time now
• Rome time now
• Amsterdam time now

For the global reference these offsets are measured from, see UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in CEST right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Keep in mind that CEST is the summer setting of Central European Time. Through the winter the zone is on CET instead, and the clock shows that. Either way, the time shown is the correct local time.

Is central Europe on CEST or CET right now?

Go by the dates. CEST runs from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. The rest of the year, from late October round to late March, the zone is on CET. Find where today falls between those two Sundays and you will know.

What is the difference between CEST and CET?

CET is the standard setting at one hour ahead of UTC. CEST is the daylight saving setting at two hours ahead, UTC plus 2. The zone springs forward to CEST in March and falls back to CET in October. Central European Time means whichever one is active.

How many hours ahead of UTC is CEST?

Two hours ahead, written UTC plus 2. That is the summer offset. In winter the zone is on CET, which is one hour ahead of UTC.

Which countries use CEST?

Most of central and western Europe, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Austria, and Switzerland. They all switch to CEST for the summer and back to CET for the winter, on the same dates.

What is the IANA name for Central European Time?

There are several that share the same rules, such as Europe/Berlin and Europe/Paris, in the IANA time zone database that your phone and your computer use. Each carries both the CET and CEST offsets and the rule for switching between them. Europe/Berlin is what drives the live clock on this page.

References

1. Directive 2000/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on summer-time arrangements, which sets the last Sundays of March and October as the change dates across the EU. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/84/oj
2. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany's national metrology institute and the keeper of legal time for Central European Time. https://www.ptb.de
3. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Time Zone Database (the tz database), home of the Europe/Berlin and related identifiers. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
4. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference these offsets are measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time